I was on 17m last weekend on Sunday, Jan 10, 2016 and I worked a fellow named Jay who gave the call sign W0AFX. He said he was near the center of Missouri. When he signed with me he gave his call first then mine. I thought that was very strange, so I stayed on frequency (18.140 Mhz) and he had another QSO with W3FRQ and he signed out the same way with him. Obviously this fellow knew nothing of amateur radio protocol, so I decided to look up W0AFX on QRZ.com and found the call belongs to a Christopher R. Bloom in Topeka, Kansas (I don't think Jay fits here). Also the class license is Technician. Since Technician class operators are not allowed on 17m I figured this guy was definitely an illegal operator. And since I had a QSO with him he will probably be using my call in the future. Thank God for logbooks!!

I realize hams police themselves, but I'm not sure how to go about helping to get this guy off the air. It might be a waste of time contacting the FCC, not sure they would be able to do anything without a lot more evidence.

As the years have gone by it seems to be getting worse to me. People now feel they can just jump on and do whatever they want with no repercussions at all.

Me and a bunch of my friends were all on 40 meters one evening when this guy throws his call out so we let him jump in to the round table. One of my buddies looked his call up and told guy he couldn't find it listed. I asked him to repeat it so we were not mistaken and he said "Well ya got me" "I don't actually have a call and never have". "I've been doing this for years cuz it don't really hurt anybody to just talk to people does it"?

We're living in an age where wrong is right and right is wrong I'm afraid.

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